‘A few small questions, Maître. Nothing difficult.’
It was the line Paris had said would begin each interview. ‘Ah! Renée, how thoughtful of you. A glass of the Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Inspector, the 1940. Still in the barrel where it will stay, God willing, for at least another four years before bottling.’
While the girl, nearly in tears now, poured, Simondi’s gaze never left her nor did the tenor of his mute condemnation alter. Albert Renaud was far more the professorial-looking type. A grey-haired, pipe-smoking man in a rumpled beige tweed suit of the early 1930s, a green plaid tie, wire-rimmed spectacles, dark blue eyes and with the perpetual expression of having just delivered a profound question or answer.
The hair was silky and thinning rapidly, the brow deeply furrowed, the moustache full, the mouth small. ‘The wine is from the Clos du Clément Sixth, Inspector,’ he said, as if this Kripo should know how important that was.
‘It’s on its way to surpassing the 1934 and the 1926,’ acknowledged Simondi. ‘Renée, angelo mio, you’re forgiven. Take a little sip and tell us what you think. Ah! C’est bon, n’est-ce pas? Nettare puro from the breast of mother nature herself.’ He kissed his fingertips.
Pure nectar. Well, maybe, thought Kohler. The girl said what was expected of her and was allowed to leave without a farewell glance from her boss.
‘I trust her judgement,’ confided Simondi with a flick of his cigarette to clear it of ash.
A jade green, velvet-covered double sofa was flanked by Carrara marble damsels that held gilded candelabra above their heads. Home turf, was it? wondered Kohler. The cushions were plump and soft, and when he sat down in the sofa, he sank deeply into it.
‘This terrible murder. Please tell us how the investigation is progressing. Spare nothing. Alberto and myself are here to help.’
Like vultures over carrion, was that it, eh, snorted Kohler to himself as he took out his little black notebook and flipped it open to a blank page they couldn’t get a look at. ‘Let’s see what we’ve got. Three judges. The two of you and Bishop Rivaille. Time: ten p.m. Location: the Grand Tinel and one young lady singing her heart out from the far end of an otherwise empty hall.’
He let them think about this, then said, ‘One dog that answers to the name of Nino but is a beagle bitch that wanders and brings home little treasures she finds so that her friends, male and female, can share the joy of them. A girl’s tennis shoe … The jade green heel from a pair of expensive dress shoes that were bought in Paris, I think.’
‘Ispettore …’
‘Got your attention, have I? I want the truth, Maître. The wine’s okay, by the way. A bit heavy, but of a nice deep colour. Maybe it suffers from being too inexperienced. Ja, meine lieben Herren, it’s like a young virgin. Slow to develop, but given the fullness of time, will come into its own.’
They waited. Simondi had returned to surveying him with that thumb of his still hooked into his waistcoat. Renaud was calm.
‘I take it those are the deeds to the vineyard?’ said Kohler.
‘And the mortgages,’ offered Renaud eagerly. ‘Bishop Rivaille has always expressed an interest …’
‘A passion, Alberto.’
‘A passion, yes, for returning the Mother Church to her former glory in Avignon. We try to assist in whatever ways we can.’
‘The vineyards lie on land that is immediately below the ruins of the papal summer palace, Inspector,’ said Simondi, taking up the unlabelled bottle to refill Kohler’s glass. ‘Keep the memory of this with you while I get us a bottle of the 1926. It’s no trouble. Alberto and I were about to share one anyway.’
‘Forget the wine. Suppose you start by telling me why Salvatore Biron, the concierge, wasn’t told of the audition.’
‘But he was! I’m certain of it,’ exclaimed Simondi. ‘Didn’t Bishop Rivaille tell you this?’
‘Biron claims he didn’t know there was to be one.’
‘Then he lies for reasons of his own. Strike only for the truth, Inspector, as you’ve stated yourself.’
Again, Simondi, adopting the same pose, settled back to study him.
‘Salvatore loves the cinema,’ offered Renaud apologetically. ‘César is too kind. It’s not the first time our grand mutilé has lied, nor is it the first time he has been absent from his duties. When I couldn’t find him, I simply drew the black-out curtains myself and set up the chairs.’
‘I found the candles,’ said Simondi. ‘The bishop and I lighted and placed them about the hall. The girl entered. She was obviously extremely nervous. I asked her if she wished to put off the audition until another time.’
‘You begged her to do so, César. I heard you. Why not say it?’
‘Scusate, Ispettore. Forgive me. Yes, I was, I must tell you, uneasy. Mireille … Ah! She had the voice, the manner, the bearing. Her costume was perfect.’
‘Perfect!’ said Renaud softly. ‘Magnificent!’
‘Evocative. The past personified in every detail, yet I knew in my heart, Inspector, things would not go well for her.’
‘Who else was present?’
‘Only the three of us and herself. Why, please, do you ask?’
‘What about the singers?’
‘Them? Most certainly not. Each understands totally that such an interference would lose them their position. When one does what I do, Inspector, one has to insist on absolute obedience. A commitment that is total. Auditions are always private and, as much as possible, held in confidence.’
‘It was too close to curfew in any case, Inspector,’ said Renaud. ‘None of them would have had laissez-passers.’
‘What about Brother Matthieu?’
‘That one?’ exclaimed Renaud. ‘Ah no, Inspector. By that time of night, our gueule cassée would have been alone in his cell with his God and his thoughts.’
‘He has a small problem, Inspector,’ confessed Simondi, reaching for his glass. ‘It’s harmless, I assure you. When one has suffered so much, others must make allowances, isn’t that so?’
‘What problem?’
They looked at each other. ‘A fondness for hair,’ said Renaud.
‘A girl’s hair?’
‘And her breasts, but only to look at, never to touch,’ conceded Simondi. ‘Photographs, I believe.’
‘Entirely innocent,’ interjected Renaud with a nod.
‘And you’re certain no one else was present?’
‘No one,’ said Simondi.
‘Then that has to mean one of you killed her.’
‘Ispettore …’
‘No, you listen, amico mio. Find paper and pen and each of you set out exactly what you did and where you were between dinner and after the murder was discovered and you were “notified.” My partner will expect me to get this from you both. He’s the boss. Sign and date it too.’
‘Merda! Can’t this wait, Ispettore? My wife is the one I think you should question. Earlier on Monday I asked her to join us as the third judge but later understood her to be unwell and called upon Alberto here. But she … she may mistakenly have gone to the Palais at the last minute.’
‘There was someone else,’ said Renaud. ‘César, I was certain of it and still am. You see, the chairs are hidden out of the way, Inspector. When I went to get them I felt strongly that someone was there, but when I shone my light around the stairwell, there was no one.’
‘Didn’t the three of you lock the main door behind you?’
‘I’m sure Henri-Baptiste did, Inspector. We went in together using his key,’ said Renaud.
‘Before or after Mademoiselle de Sinéty?’
‘Why, before her, of course. She had my key,’ said Simondi.
‘Then it was Mireille who, in her agitation, César, must have left the door unlocked.’
‘I’ll get us the 1926, Inspector. Scusatemi un momento. Alberto, find him a cigarette, or perhaps he would prefer one of my cigars.’
And il profumo del successo? wondered Kohler. The sweet smell of success. O
ne targeted wife, was that it, eh, and one distracted, baffled detective? ‘You do that. A marc, though. Wine always seems to give me gas even when one’s hosts have just bought a six-hundred-year-old vineyard.’
7
The curfew had come down, the city was like a tomb. High above the river and the Palais, the clouds had parted to reveal the sickle of a waning moon.
Kohler drew on his cigarette and hunched his shoulders against the cold as he waited for Louis to join him on the bridge. A Wehrmacht motorcycle courier had come to the cinema with a note calling him away at once. Von Mahler had insisted on the meeting place and hadn’t been happy. Louis had gone against the Kommandant’s express wishes and had spoken to his wife.
‘And now, suddenly, von Mahler doesn’t want anyone else to know of it.’
The stars were very bright, the wind had dropped to almost nothing. Mireille de Sinéty hadn’t just been murdered. She’d been savagely silenced. But had there been something else? Had that savagery been used to set an example to others? Had the Cagoule done it?
And what of Adrienne de Langlade? Xavier had been accused of raping her. He had known of the girl’s drowning, had removed a thick twist of hair from her corpse and kept it.
‘To blackmail Brother Matthieu?’ he asked. Every cop who was worth his salt knew that schoolboys often garnered pocket money by blackmailing illicit lovers, homosexuals and perverts. Some of the little buggers had paid dearly for it.
‘Xavier, what the hell did you do to Nino? Did you take her up river to where she had come upon that girl’s clothing and had led you to her corpse? Did you kill that hound?’
Only the sound of the river came to him, roiling softly. When the blue cat’s-eyes of the Colonel’s tourer slowly approached, he asked, ‘And you, mein lieber Kamerad? What of you?’
Von Mahler gripped the steering wheel. Louis sat beside him. Kohler got quickly into the back.
‘Gentlemen, this meeting never took place. Neither of you has at any time spoken to my wife, nor had any verbal or written communication from her. Is that understood?’
‘But she was at the Palais on the night of the murder,’ objected Louis.
Verdammt, would they not listen? ‘She wasn’t. She never leaves the house and everyone knows this. Psychologically she is incapable of doing so.’
‘But—’
‘No buts. Berlin still have deep reservations about your loyalties. Gestapo Boemelburg made a point of telling me this. If you want it verbatim, he said he’d be very glad to be rid of you both.’
It was Louis who asked if the Cagoule had been mentioned. Kohler snorted and said, ‘Idiot, of course it was! What better way of taking care of a problem than feeding it to assassins?’
No cigarettes could be allowed lest the smell of the smoke cling to him. Von Mahler regretted this, for shared tobacco was often a facilitator. ‘Officially I must tolerate and even be seen to get along with de Passe, Rivaille and Renaud – Simondi, too, for that matter and the games they play, their constant acquisitions. The existing power structures are so useful to us. Without them, how could we possibly maintain control?’
‘La Cagoule, then, Colonel?’ asked Louis, a reminder.
‘I have no proof and officially must look the other way.’
‘And did you do that with Adrienne de Langlade’s death?’ asked Kohler.
‘I had no other choice but to leave the matter in de Passe’s hands. Privately I felt, and still do, that the girl met an unfortunate end. At the least, Simondi and the others know what happened to her; at the most, they were responsible.’
It was Hermann who rolled down a side window to bring in a breath of fresh air.
‘Gentlemen, I should have seen that Mireille was putting herself in grave danger. Officially I told myself it was a French matter; privately I knew from talking to my wife and to the girl that things were far from right.’
‘And with Dédou Favre, Colonel?’ asked Louis.
In irritation von Mahler pulled off his gloves. ‘Officially I stated the boy must be guilty of her murder. Privately I knew he could never have harmed her even if ordered to by his maquis chief. I wanted to talk to Dédou, to reason with him. Do you think Kommandants have the time to comb the hills for Banditen? That is always left to others. But I didn’t and don’t want him killed. You see, he alone must know what Mireille had planned to say to those who judged her.’
‘The killing of Adrienne,’ said Louis.
‘But was there something else?’ hazarded von Mahler. ‘Was there something the terrorists needed that only the establishment and the Church could give in exchange for her silence?’
‘Blackmail …’ managed Kohler. ‘Herr Oberst, are you saying she was about to—’
‘Call it what you will, but the terrorists are desperate. Many are no more than bandits and live like them, stealing from the peasants and everyone else. Extorting money, clothing, food, cigarettes and drink. They’re poorly armed, badly disorganized, ill-trained, lawless most of them, and cowardly. But if allowed sanctuary from the bitterest winter in years? If allowed sleep, full bellies and proper training, what then? As Kommandant I have to look beyond the obvious. As detectives you must do the same in spite of your patriotic leanings, St-Cyr, and your acquired love of the French, Kohler. In short, gentlemen, I want that boy taken alive and kept safely so that I can talk to him. I want the truth, nothing else. And that I will relay to Gestapo Boemelburg if and when you conclude this affair. Have I made myself clear?’
He still hadn’t been told that Dédou had been arrested, thought Kohler.
‘Well?’ demanded von Mahler.
‘Bestimmt, Herr Oberst. Bestimmt,’ muttered Louis. Definitely.
*
Alone with his partner in the Renault, St-Cyr hunted for words to express what Hermann would know only too well he felt. The threat Boemelburg posed was far deeper than the Kommandant had let on.
In Paris, Gabrielle Arcuri, a chanteuse and the new love of this Sûreté’s life, had been a suspect in their last investigation. Now she’d be considered a hostage until the present matter was concluded to suit the Gestapo, the SS and the Führer.
But Bishop Rivaille had said nothing about her. Instead, he had let him know only too clearly that Gestapo Paris-Central looked askance at Hermann’s living with a former prostitute and Oona Van der Lynn, a Dutch alien without proper papers. Blackmail again.
Things would have to be absolutely out in the open between them. ‘The Résistance, Hermann. About two weeks after the flood waters of mid-November released Adrienne de Langlade’s body, Frau von Mahler took this from under the lapel of Mireille de Sinéty’s overcoat.’
The Cross of Lorraine … Abruptly Hermann rolled down his side window to fling the pin into the river.
‘Don’t! Please don’t. Not yet.’
‘Are you crazy? Boemelburg, Louis. Gestapo Mueller … If anyone should find this on us …’
‘Idiot! That pin is the key to Frau von Mahler. The Colonel unfortunately came upon us just as she was about to tell me who she had seen in the Palais on the night of the murder.’
‘He insists she never goes out.’
‘Then ask yourself, as I have, how many trips to Paris she has had to make for skin grafts. Berlin is too dangerous, too terrifying – the nightly bombings, n’est-ce pas? Ask also how it is she came by a Belgian FN at a price of forty thousand francs if not purchased on the black market in Paris where it would be both safer and easier for her to have acquired such a thing without her husband knowing.’
Everyone knew the troops sold things they shouldn’t. ‘De Passe took Dédou Favre well before dawn on Monday, Louis, but failed to tell von Mahler.’
‘And sent the Kommandant out on a wild-goose chase?’
‘Not quite. He bagged four maquis.’
‘Xavier … A traitor. Ah! Why must God do this to France?’
It had been a cry of despair. ‘The hundred thousand francs was paid in four nice bundles, two of which ha
ve already gone for expenses.’
Kohler told him about the photographs and what must have happened at the ‘picnic’ early last June. ‘That little member of the pégre is old enough to want to try it with a girl even if she’s out like a light, but did he really do that to her or is it but another of their lies?’
‘Absinthe … Was he told to do so by Madame Simondi? Apparently she eggs the singers on, Hermann. Frau von Mahler made a point of telling me this and that Mireille de Sinéty found the woman repugnant. The singers do as she asks or face dismissal.’
‘And the car is pointed in the right direction, eh? Verdammt, I’m tired. I want to go to bed!’
‘Then trust me, mon vieux. If Simondi’s Villa Marenzio is any indication, his house in Villeneuve-les-Avignon should have plenty of room.’
A pedal-pushing garde champêtre challenged them, and when asked, led them to the villa. Il palazzo della mia pastorella divina (the villa of my divine shepherdess) was on the rue de la République, about halfway between the cemetery and the Fort Saint-André whose ramparts rose above the promontory from which they had commanded the terrain since the latter half of the fourteenth century.
Hermann yanked on the bell.
‘Messieurs, madame is asleep and not well,’ came a strict female voice from out of the darkness of the foyer.
‘It’s okay. We’re doctors. We’ve come all the way from Paris just to look after her.’
‘Paris? The detectives. You—’
Nobody could close a door on Hermann if he didn’t want it to be closed. Nobody. Especially if he had help and was agitated.
*
The four-poster was richly carved. Deep in a cocoon of sleep and wearing nothing but a coverlet rich with antique gold brocade, Christiane Bissert and Genèvieve Ravier lay wrapped in each other’s arms exactly where they’d fallen.
‘Absinthe,’ muttered Louis, lifting the bottle from a table.
They didn’t stir. The Primo Soprano’s blonde hair was laced with dried lavender. The Alto’s skin glistened with a fragrant unguent; her jet black curls and long lashes were still damp with perspiration.
Madrigal Page 18